Hyperoxia during recovery from consecutive anaerobic exercises in the sickle cell trait

The sickle cell trait (HbAS) does not affect anaerobic exercise performance. However, lower blood lactate concentrations ([La-]) are consistently found during repeated anaerobic exercise in HbAS, and could be related to type of recovery. To study this, on three different occasions 17 HbAS and 17 matched control athletes (HbAA) underwent a series of three maximal cycle exercise tests of approximately 2-min duration, separated by 10-min recovery periods of rest, breathing either room air (P) or 100% oxygen (H), or of light pedaling (A). In all tests, work performed, heart rate, blood hematocrit, and [La-] were measured. Despite similar evolution of performance in each series of three anaerobic exercises, significantly lower [La-] were consistently found in HbAS in P and A, compared to HbAA (P < 0.0001). However, in H, similar [La-] was found in HbAS and HbAA. Higher mean heart rates were consistently measured in HbAS at exhaustion, and during the first 4 min of recovery, these differences being unrelated to type of recovery. We conclude that type of recovery does not influence subsequent performance in HbAS or HbAA. We speculate that improved regional oxygen availability in exercising muscle is associated with marked modification of lactate kinetics in highly trained HbAS, but not in similarly fit HbAA athletes.